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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a vital congressional authority, has turned into a murky prerogative of the executive branch in the time since September 11; the president, in recent months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of management and budget director, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to move the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must now be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive recurring must-spend comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. Currently, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a controlling share in a institution that has mostly abolished itself?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging could help the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. Partly, it is a belated response to developments happening in other states: GOP-led states have long embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state’s House representation next year; comparable redistricting moves are under way in states such as the Show-Me State and Indiana. (The left in Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters react with fear and frustration to the president’s autocratic consolidation of authority and look for ways to check his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not free from controversy. Some critics warn that the move could have unintended consequences, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a revenge cycle in which red states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled pro-democracy bases: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the outcome of the election is never really in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and persuasion that is meant to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their merits. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to redraw their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it does not make sense to claim that Republicans will be compelled to act in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so without those actions. The GOP, it can be noted, has required no any motivation of revenge to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for themselves: they have been ready to do this for its own sake, in the total absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a different nation than the one that the United States has turned into. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is not good for politicians to select their voters, instead of the reverse; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the authoritarian advance of Trump’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are required. Only after the battle against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to the capital to do? One thing that the House and Senate still retains is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of sclerotic government and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to great effect. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• Moira Donegan is a news outlet columnist